Six days after it was revealed on television that his rubber processing plant here was operating without an environmental permit, the embattled former congressman was quietly issued the license by a regional official whom he had promoted less than two weeks before.

The secret signing last October 19 of an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) for the DENR secretary's rubber processing plant is almost sure to fuel the intense lobbying campaign being waged by a coalition of NGOs against Cerilles's appointment.

The upcoming congressional confirmation hearings on Cerilles's appointment are expected to be among the longest and most heated under the Estrada administration. According to a Commission on Appointments (CA) official, the complaints submitted from around the country about Cerilles are the most against a single appointee since the CA was set up in 1987.

"The allegations against other recent appointees had to do with their private lives, but the statements of opposition against Cerilles are policy-based and question his fitness for the job," said a CA staff member.

The secretary's critics are already pouncing on the revelation of the barely month-old ECC. "If he can do this for his own interests, issuing an ECC retroactively," said Atty. Marvic Leonen of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, a leading oppositor, " he will not have the discipline to impose a higher standard on other, bigger businesses."

In a joint television report last October 13, the PCIJ and The Probe Team disclosed that Cerilles's rubber plant had been operating for at least a year without an ECC, a violation of the law. Long routinely ignored by business, the ECC requirement has been subjected to much closer scrutiny in recent years by both government and a more discerning public. Cerilles himself asserted in an interview that he had not yet signed a single ECC, as an indication of how "extra careful" he was.

Cerilles's two-page ECC was dated October 19 and signed by the DENR's director for Region 9, Antonio M. Mendoza, who was promoted to his new post in Zamboanga City only on October 9. A copy of the ECC was faxed to this reporter only after repeated requests. According to senior DENR officials in Manila, they were not informed about its signing.

Operating the rubber plant without the required ECC was expected to be a key issue against Cerilles before members of the Commission on Appointments. His hearings are scheduled to begin on December 10.

But the sudden appearance of the permit may raise just as many questions, including accusations that he misused his powers to benefit his own business. His ECC application had been pending in the DENR's region 9 office for a year and a half.

"The Secretary has said that if you can allow a congressman to wait that long, how about ordinary people?" said Ramon Paje, the DENR Undersecretary for Field Operations. "Maybe that's the reason it was fast-tracked." Paje added, however, that he did not know until this reporter told him that the ECC had been issued.

For his part, Mendoza said that some ECCs are delayed because of a lack of required submissions by the operators of the business. He explained that he signed his boss's ECC after it was recommended by his region's technical director, Teotimo M. Redulla, and claimed there was no significance in the timing. "Signing ECCs is one of my natural functions," Mendoza said.

The Ace William Cerilles Rubber Processing Plant, named after the secretary's only child, is here in his former congressional district in Lakewood, Zamboanga del Sur, on the edge of a 200-hectare rubber plantation that Cerilles also owns.

In an ocular inspection here last month, this reporter observed milky wastewater being discharged from the plant into the Buyugan River right below. The waterway flows directly into Kumalarang municipality. The rubber plant itself reeked of a strong odor akin to animal dung, supposedly the usual smell of raw rubber being dried.

Yet, according to the conditions contained in the company's ECC, the plant can only be allowed to operate if it treats its wastewater on site and if measures are in place to "prevent odor."

The secretary is presently on an extended overseas official trip. But in an interview on October 9, he first told this reporter that he didn't know whether his plant had an ECC. Then in the next instant, he said it had been issued "a long time ago" and he would fax a copy to this reporter.

It was not faxed; members of his staff later acknowledged that there was no ECC, which was also what Zamboanga del Sur's provincial environment and natural resources office in Pagadian City said.

In the same interview, Cerilles said that he believed that "for businesses that are not critical, there is no need" for an ECC. Such a statement would signify a departure from the present policy of requiring two kinds of projects to have ECCs: critical projects such as power plants and other large-scale infrastructure; and other projects in "critical areas," which include irrigated agricultural lands and other ecologically important sites.

Cerilles's plant, which appears to be a small to medium-scale, water-intensive rubber flattening operation, lies just above layers of irrigated rice paddies.

Excluding enterprises like his from the ECC requirement would affect thousands of small and medium-scale businesses located in or near sensitive ecosystems and would surely raise an outcry from communities and activists concerned about the environmental impact of commercial activity.

The penalty for operating without an ECC is a fine and possibly the closure of the plant. The stakes for Cerilles could be higher: CA members, coming from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, may use Cerilles's violation of a regulation enforced by his own department to justify his removal from one of the most powerful posts in government. The DENR has jurisdiction over 16 million hectares of public land, over half of the country's territory.

Cerilles has become the focal point for the nation's environmental politics. His hearings, the start of which has been postponed till December 10, are expected to become the main arena for progressive environmental activists trying to fight off what they see as an attempt to take control of the environmental agenda by conservative forces backing Cerilles.

Under the Ramos administration, the environmental movement had notched some significant triumphs, notably the passage of the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act, which has recently been challenged in the Supreme Court.

Cerilles had just finished his third term as a congressman with little experience in environmental legislation when he became President Estrada's surprise appointment to the DENR last July.

Controversial appointments and statements by Cerilles in the last several months have led to the formation of one of the broadest NGO and grassroots coalitions in recent years. Called Bantay-DENR, it is focused almost exclusively on opposing Cerilles's appointment.

Expected to support Cerilles at the CA are his former colleagues in the House of Representatives who are now members of the body, such as Rogelio Sarmiento, Faustino Dy, Jr. and Nur Jaafar. Cerilles has long been close to Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora, another former colleague in the House; Zamora's family controls the country's nickel mining industry. Cerilles was also a campaign manager for President Estrada's LAMMP party in Mindanao.

Sources in the Commission on Appointments say that they have received an "unprecedented" 15 documented complaints against Cerilles, ranging from his proposal to build roads around forests to voting against pro-agrarian reform issues while in Congress.

Among the most critical issues among the oppositors is his lobbying for a notorious local official from his district, Cesar Sulong, to be the chair of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, a position that has great influence over the fate of ancestral lands nation-wide. Sulong faces a string of corruption charges stemming from his tenure as mayor of Lapuyan, Zamboanga del Sur. After protests from indigenous groups, Sulong's appointment was placed under reconsideration in the Office of the President.

The CA's committee on environment, chaired by Senator Loren Legarda, postponed Cerilles's first hearing to December 10, when CA "members will have no excuse not to attend," according to a member of her staff. By then, the CA expects the present large batch of appointees to have been decided upon, enabling commission members to concentrate on Cerilles.

"I will be fair," says Legarda, "but honestly, he could have a difficult time because he is such a controversial figure."

There are also some issues not previously publicized by oppositors. On a trip to his former congressional district last month, this reporter spoke to Subanen tribal leaders who claimed that Cerilles was using an intermediary to buy up land in areas already covered by Certificates of Ancestral Domain Claims; and a woman, Guillerma Udal, who said Cerilles had taken over her land on the shore of the scenic lake in Lakewood, Zamboanga del Sur.

Cerilles denies both allegations. "I have enough land," he asserted. "If they want to prove that, ipakita nila. Anything I buy there, iyo na. Kanila na."